


Collection the Third: University Happenings

by classics_above_classics



Series: Alice Dorothy and Stories Set Elsewhere [18]
Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Apologies, Changelings, Gen, Memory Loss, Mild Amnesia, Psychological Trauma, True Names, mildly graphic depictions of violence, the Fair Folk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 15:20:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20066185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classics_above_classics/pseuds/classics_above_classics
Summary: The University welcomes a new student with open arms. And, as is to be expected, with barely hidden suspicion and worse-hidden fear.(A collecting detailing the days of two Elsewhere U. students.)





	Collection the Third: University Happenings

**Author's Note:**

> Alright! That's three University stories down. I figure it'll be time for some Lyric-Weaver content next update! Expect it this Saturday, next Tuesday, or next Thursday! I usually have to kick myself into gear on those days.

“Alright,” Calcifer starts, voice low and sharp in a room protected enough to make them itch. They’re staring down the boy before them, their eyes not leaving him even for an instant. “No matter what you do, no matter what you say, you cannot tell _anyone_ your True Name again.”

William, still half-empty, still just a touch too cold, nods. He doesn’t look like he’s willing to do a goddamn thing.

“Listen, I appreciate the information, but I’m not sure why I need it.” The former student makes a placating gesture, one that’s barely enough to stop Calcifer from making an infuriated gesture with whatever straw they can still control. This room is lined in daisies, in poppy and iron and salt circles, all painstakingly put in place with their own two hands and a pair of thick gloves. Everything burns, an incessant, furious itch that makes something coiled tight in their skin writhe, and still they’re enduring it for the sake of this unknowing fucking boy. “Can’t I just go home? I- I don’t even think I’m supposed to be going to this school, really- Can’t you just send me back? I think I want to go home.”

Calcifer has a feeling he doesn’t even know where home is anymore.

“Just pick a safename, God damn you,” the changeling curses, running a nervous hand through their curls. They can’t tell him why, can they? Because this protection can’t be enough to hide from the fae listening their hardest, from the ones who have power and anonymity to maintain. They can’t protect from anything of that level without burning into nothing themselves, without incapacitation, and can they really risk being incapacitated now, with a student’s Name in their possession? “You don’t understand. You, especially, need one, with how empty you are still. I doubt I could try to fill you again without hurting you. It’s not the kind of hurt anyone would want.”

They don’t know why, but their wording seems to bring a dark flush to his cheeks. “No, I- listen- I’m not…”

William’s voice trails away. Perhaps he’s able to feel it, too. Anyone with a shred of fey magic in them could feel how hollow he still was.

“Kirjava?” he suggests instead, pulling his knees up to his chest. “I don’t- maybe that? It sounds… good. Like something warm. Like… _coffee_. Like other halves. I like Kirjava.”

It’s a cute name. Nice, lilting, sharp syllables made soft. Calcifer could look at William and think it was fitting. It felt like something William could be.

“Don’t use Kirjava.” It fit too well. He’d get used to it rather easy. He’d start thinking of himself with it. “As much as I like the dæmon names, sweetheart, they’re the names of parts and not wholes. Someone’ll try to tear half your soul out or the like.”

“What do I choose, then? If you don’t like that one…” William curls a little further into his knees, into the warmth of hugging them tight. For a second, Calcifer thinks they’d trade him their burning, the unpleasant, harsh heat the protections drown them in. They shove that thought aside; nothing would be worse than the emptiness they’d felt, than that cold. “Maybe food?”

“Go ahead. If you like, I could name some.” At William’s nod, they continue. “Crepes, cappuccinos, lattes, frappes, eggs benedict, angel’s food cake, devilled eggs…”

“Those are long,” he says softly. “They fit in my head. Are they warm foods?”

“Frappes are generally fairly cold. Everything else is usually served warm. What about other things you remember?” If William remembered a children’s book series, he could probably remember other things, right? “Maybe something like character classes? Like bards, rogues, monks, artificers-”

“Or houses? Or traditions?” he cuts in. Calcifer bites their lip- they don’t appreciate him interrupting their distraction from the burning- but they nod anyway. Houses. Tully, maybe? He looked like he’d like House Tully, and the fish and the associations of that didn’t fit at all, which would work wonders in his not truly finding it his name. What was he going to suggest?

“Solificati,” William says- it’s from something they don’t know. Calcifer wonders, idly, if the starving spaces ate important memories first. Maybe they’d be a bigger feast. This couldn’t possibly have been as important to him as three years of culinary schooling and everything that came with it. “Euthanatos. Verbena? No- maybe- I…”

“Maybe a word that’s important to you,” Calcifer suggests. William’s starting to look a little lost, like he’s finding more and more empty parts in his thoughts. Sometimes, Johnny gets like this, too, when he feels like he’ll never know enough, like he’ll never be enough. It doesn’t help to let him spiral. They doubt it’ll help William, either. “Words meaning warm things, or full things, or comfortable things. Querencia? It means a safe place.”

“I don’t-” William looks away, something like shame crossing his face. “I don’t want it. It- they- feel wrong. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just- it doesn’t-”

“You don’t want any of these names?” Alright. That was fine. Just… they are burning right now. The straw of their hat twists uncomfortably in their tight grip. “What kind do you want, then? What do you want the names to make you feel?”

“Like I’m not hungry.” The words are barely audible past the curtain of William’s long hair, past the curve of his bony knees. “Like I’m not cold.”

Something shifts in Calcifer’s gut, sharp and burning and repentant. They should have been slower. They should have done better. They should have been more careful.

_I’m sorry,_ they think, and they mean it.

“Did the first name make you feel like that?” Calcifer asks. It takes a moment, but William responds.

“… no. I don’t think anything will. But… It’s a separated part. It’s a missing part. It’s _something_.”

Calcifer sighs, and they think. It fits too well. They can see it in him. Their new companion is lithe, dark, halfway bitter, something steeped and soft despite the pointedness in his nature. It feels right. It fits too well.

Names aren’t supposed to fit well. They become too much yours if they do.

But isn’t Calcifer something that is theirs? Calcifer is a name that sounds like heat, that sounds like something warming and brightness and burning. That’s been them since the day they were born, with the fire and the sunlight in their nature. The only straw they can control is the kind that’s been made dry. The only life they can move is the kind steeped in heat. And yet still it isn’t their Name.

If it makes William happy, Calcifer concedes. If it makes William happy.

“It’s your choice,” they sigh, watching his face light up hopefully. “Pick a safename as you like.”

And before them, still curled up like nothing will ever be warm enough, the boy called Kirjava smiles.

⋈

The school café has always been a safe place.

Alice D. has always been curious about the café. Still, she’s never been able to get information about it, whether from Lento or from the students working at the counter. She’s never been able to muster up the courage to ask the… _others_ working there. She can’t even make herself meet their eyes. Maybe they’d tell her if she offered a gift in exchange, but she doesn’t know what she could possibly give.

Whether she knows the history or not, though, the school café is safe. Which is just about the only reason D. isn’t making a run for it now.

Because the boy who’d attacked her is sitting at one of the round tables, Calcifer flanking him protectively, and Michael is sitting across them, giving them the softest look she’s ever seen in his eyes.

_I just came here for some afternoon coffee,_ D. reminds herself, letting her eyes fall shut and forcing her breathing to slow. _It’s fine._

Slowly, like she isn’t still limping from the flesh he’d torn off her leg, she walks forward.

There doesn’t seem to be any sound coming from their table, despite the fact that those three have to be talking. Every time D.’s focus goes to them, it slips away just as quickly, and for a second she wonders why she cares. So that has to be a spell or something, right? Right. That’s _fine._

D.’s voice is shaking a little as she orders a brown coffee. There’s a little extra cream to calm her nerves. The café’s coffee always does exactly what she needs it to, right? Maybe it’ll give her a little more courage. Just enough to maybe say hi to Michael and then leave.

Maybe.

D. wonders, in some far corner of her head, how her life has devolved into this. At least she didn’t have to see the last person who attacked her until a few weeks after the attack. She’s uncomfortably aware of the gash still open a little higher on her leg, still sluggishly bleeding past the tight bandages.

“Thank you for coming!” the cheerful girl at the counter says as she hands D. her order. It’s in a cute little paper cup, with Elsewhere’s logo printed cleanly on the side. D. smiles at her as she takes her order and turns to leave.

“Alice Dorothy!” comes a sharp, high voice, one that seems to cut through the low chatter of the café. D. freezes, but no-one else seems to notice the call. The sting of her wound is still present, bleeding, bleeding, bleeding-

“Come sit here for a second,” Calcifer calls, beckoning her over. Their smile is strained and a little apologetic, and there’s an unreadable glint to their dark eyes. D. gulps, heading for their table. Even a few feet away from it, she can feel a familiar twist in her stomach, one solidifying her faint feel of it being magic. Or maybe it’s just nervousness this time. Nervousness has always made her sick.

“Good afternoon,” D. greets the group quietly, taking the empty seat beside Michael. He lets her shift the chair a little closer to him. That’s a relief; she’s not in any way sure how she’d get through this without a friend.

“Afternoon, Alice Dorothy,” Calcifer responds, taking a nonchalant sip of their coffee. It’s black, D. notices, odd for a changeling. It’s curious, but everyone has their own choices. “I apologize for the sudden interruption. I just wanted to introduce you! This is a new friend of mine. Kirjava. He’s recently joined this whole ordeal, and I wanted to make sure he met some new maybe-friends.”

“Right. That- That makes sense.” D. can’t quite hear herself anymore. Her voice barely comes out even now. Kirjava. Of course. She can’t bring herself to breathe.

“Mx. Dorothy,” Michael says quietly, reaching forward and squeezing her hand. “It’s alright. Kirjava’s in the clear.”

Maybe she’d believe that, in some other circumstances. But D. can still feel the painful tear of teeth against her leg, can still remember the spike of pain and the feral, deep growls of the crazed boy now in front of her. She can’t make herself breathe.

The boy, Kirjava, isn’t moving. D. realizes numbly that he’s staring at appoint below the table, that his eyes have gone terrifyingly, familiarly blank. She follows his gaze to the tight wrap of bandages under her pant leg, where she can feel bleeding, bleeding, _bleeding_-

“H-Hi,” Kirjava says suddenly, tearing his eyes away. He’s gripping Calcifer’s arm tightly, confusion clear over every inch of his expression. Confusion and fear. D. doesn’t understand. Why would he be so confused? Does he- Oh, God, he doesn’t-

-he doesn’t know.

That explains it. Why he isn’t feral. Why Calcifer called you over, why they look so apologetic- hell, why Michael is still here, and why Kirjava’s been allowed in. Some sort of curse, then? Something that made him…

Something that made him so dangerous?

She doesn’t want to think about it.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kirjava,” Alice D. greets him, taking a slow breath. “I hope you have a good time here.”

Kirjava smiles timidly at that, the look softening his features impossibly. “It’s nice to meet you too, Mx. Alice. I want the same, too.”

And, if awkwardly, if haltingly, the conversation continues.


End file.
